Discover our guide to educating your child about how to make smarter and safer choices as they navigate their online world.
The impact of cyberbullying can be devastating to a young person. But, starting conversations about online safety as early as possible can help to protect your child from experiencing cyberbullying. While you probably use social networks yourself, you might want to know about new ones that your child is using or wants to use. Use them yourself and set up your own account so you can experience what your child might see. There are also many child-friendly social networks they could use while they get ready for the likes of Snapchat and Instagram.
Use our age-specific interactive guides to help talk to your child about cyberbullying.
The best way to protect your child is to be actively involved in their digital life. For some parents, this can mean having access to their messages and social media profiles and for others, it can mean managing the parental controls to limit what they can access.
Talk to your child about what they do online and what they want to do online. Ask them about the kind of sites they go on and who they talk to; be clear about what you don’t want them to do online.
The choices we make online say something about who we are. Talk to your child about how the things they do online paint a picture of themselves, so they shouldn’t post things without thinking about it. Talk to your child about the risks of sharing, identifying where they live or go to school, and what people online might do with that information. Talk about what the risks might be of sharing personal thoughts and feelings.
As a parent, you have some decisions to make about how you want your child to engage online and on social media, and what measures you want to put in place to help protect them.
Spend time together looking at the privacy settings.
We’ve got some advice on using privacy settings on the most popular social apps. There are also a range of new apps and software that block, filter and monitor online behaviour. You’ll need to decide as a family whether this is the right approach for you, taking into consideration your child’s age and maturity, and their need for privacy.
Use their nickname and a profile picture of their pet or favourite band, rather than themselves, and encourage them to only be friends with people they know in real life. Avoid sharing personal information like school, age and place they live.
In some games like Minecraft or Roblox, people deliberately try to intimidate other players. In multi-player games where gamers talk to one another, you might find abusive language or harassment, and there have also been instances of grooming. It’s therefore vital that your child knows how to report abuse and talks to you if something is causing them concern.
With Net Aware from the NSPCC and O2 you can find out more about the sites, games and apps your child uses including minimum age limits
Visit the NSPCC site
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